Article

Retaining older Calendar entries on iOS

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Q: Is there a way to not have my calendar entries delete from my calendar on my iPad and iPhone. I would like them to stay until I delete them. Sometimes I need to check past events 2 years or more back. In the Palm OS days I had more control over my calendar retention. In addition to the basic calendar I also use Pocket Informant.

- Denise

A: By default, the iOS Calendars app only synchronizes and retains the last months’ worth of events on your device, regardless of how much data is stored in whatever cloud or desktop calendar application you’re synchronizing with. This can easily be changed with a quick trip to the Settings app, however; under the Mail, Contacts, Calendars section there is an option near the bottom to set how much of your calendar data you want synchronized and retained on your device, with options for two weeks, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or everything regardless of how old.

In this case, simply set the option to All Events on both your iPhone and iPad. Not only will this prevent older entries from being removed from your device going forward, but your device will actually transferred them back into your calendar from your cloud or desktop calendar application—providing that they’re still available there, of course.

Note that since you’re also using Pocket Informant, you should double-check that a similar setting doesn’t exist within that application as it may override anything you’ve configured in the iOS Calendar settings.

Comments

1

thank you! so helpful!

Posted by myia in Toronto on January 17, 2013 at 9:53 AM (CST)

1

Thank you! You ended my panic.

Posted by Peggy in Toronto on March 17, 2013 at 8:47 PM (CDT)

1

One big problem still remains though even with the suggested setting to sync all events: There is no way to tell Spotlight search on iOS to consider any events older than a year, at least I wasn’t able to figure out how. With this restriction (by design?) having old calendar entries on your device is of rather limited use. If I could always tell when a past event was I wouldn’t need a calendar to remember it for me. But the truth is I can’t tell and the only way to answer such questions currently is to go back to an approximate date and from there flip through the days or weeks and spot the entry myself.

Posted by Uwe Römers in Toronto on March 23, 2013 at 6:19 AM (CDT)

1

Skydrive is crashing on my iPod touch.
I have to delete it and then get it from iTunes again.
Is there any way to save all of my data, pics and resumes that I have stored on Skydrive. I also have a desktop PC and laptop PC.

Posted by Judy in Toronto on April 8, 2013 at 11:20 PM (CDT)

1

Amazing! I had issues thinking my old appointments were deleted and they have “magically” appeared after reading this article. I am self employed and need to keep records of my appointments.